The Dragonball arc
Prologue The 1st story arcs opens in the countryside of the Kingdom of Britannia. As the farmers are tilling their fields on a sunny day, when suddenly a dark cloud covers the Earth and blocks out the sun. The mysterious black cloud covered the entire Kingdom of Britannia, and regardless of the weather around the kingdom the cloud would not move, change shape, nor disperse. Crops began to wilt, livestock became sick, and rivers ran dry. After a month the king of Britannia, Heathecliff, received a mysterious message from the border. It said, "I know you have what I want, give me it and I will dispel the cloud, or else I will wait until you starve to death and pluck it from your corpse, -The Dark Wizard Zardac". The King's magicians tried for themselves to dispel the cloud but to no avail, it seems as if the cloud is such a powerful spell not even killing the caster will get rid of it. The king then came up with a counterplan, he sent word out for adventurers to do a series of fetch quests, no questions ask, and thus our 1st story began. Main Quest Line part 1 Several adventurers had gathered before the king, among them were a dragonhide named Daichi, a small saurian named Sigrun, and circus performers, a dwarf and elf named Oghren & Zevran, aka The World Famous Broma Brothers, a thief by the name of Albatrar, and a necromancer named Blythe. After seeing these, um, adventurers the king and his council explained. They brought out a small orange crystal ball, it was the size of a baseball and had a red star in it. The King explained that note from Zardac, what he wants is their dragonball, the king explains that there are 7 and that Zardac has the 7 star ball, according to legend, if one collects all 7 then calls forth the legendary dragon known as Shenron, a giant dragon will appear and grant the summoner one wish. The king is worried that Zardac might wish for ultimate power or something nefarious. So the quest is to collect the other 5 before Zardac does, then to kill and take Zardac's ball and to use it to wish away the cloud. Using the King's mages and shaman they can get a general idea of where the other 5 are as well as the dungeon where Zardac is hiding. Side Quest 1 The 1st one was in an abandoned church. This church supposedly belonged to an evil cult that worshipped chaos demons. When our heroes go there they had found that not only was the church being reused again by this strange cult but that Zardac had sent some mages there to recover the dragon ball for him. The mages had summoned a manticore to help them fight the cult and were guarding the entrance. So the Broma Brothers left a "flaming bag of distraction" for the mages in the front door while the rest of the part blasted through the wall on the side and delt with the manticore first. Inside they found korn demons and cultist as wll as strange purple statues, at the altar was something small and strange moving about. It turned out that the statues had been infected with some sort of black liquid that was making them hostile, so the party had another group of enemies to fight. After an epic battle and nearly destroying the church, at one point blythe's magic backfired and temporarily took him to Oblivion, they found a tiny lich at the alter, it squealed and grew in size from barely half a foot to 8 ft tall. The party did battle with this strange lich only for it to give up and flee in terror. Behind a counter it had left the 4 star dragon ball. Albatrar had found a summoning stone, which summoned a small frog like creature with a plant bulb on his back. It just kept saying bulbasaur, he kept it as a pet. Sigrun, had found a mysterious black crystal, it seemed to resonate something within him. Blythe didn't come back until the next day and Albatrar decided to cut his loses for the day and call it quits on this adventure. The king was surprised to see 2 adventurers missing but was given hope the moment they handed them this dragon ball. Side Quest 2 The 2nd one was in a crypt. The Broma Brothers unfortunately had a 3rd brother who had fallen ill and they claimed they need to go home and take care of him before going on this next adventure. In their place they asked the help of an elven necromancer by the name of Ardon whom was from a guild that the brothers were a part of and neglected to mention. Blythe finally had returned. Daichi, having some affairs he needed to get in order had his associate, Aaron, a demon with the ability to summon other demons, attend his place. This time the cultist were followers of nurgle. While the party fought them the area began to fill with poison gas. Zardac's men showed up, this time he had sent thieves led by a mysterious elven woman named Shiek. As the party moved through the crypt avoiding traps as best they could, Blythe once again accidentally sent himself into Oblivion. Sheik noticed the party's skills and had decided to convince both sides to form a truce, the reason being that she and the hired thieves had found that the next dragonball had been eaten by a beholder and in order to defeat it they had to work together with the thieves and shiek distracting it and the King's party attacking. After destroying the room and killing the beholder they found the 6 star dragonball. Sheik then betrayed the surviving thieves and joined the party and helped finish them off. The king was confused by this but Sheik claimed that she was Zardac's slave since birth and was looking for an opportunity to leave him. Side Quest 3 The 3rd one was at the bottom of the sea. This time Daichi had come back but Ardon left, apparently he was a family man and was worried that this was getting too dangerous, in his place was a mysterious stoic human, he was dressed oddly, he looked like Indiana Jones, he was from the same guild and his name was Rodrik G. Asher, he was equipped with a sword, a satchel, and a whip, no one could tell his class. Sheik had revealed that Zardac has gotten his own sample of the black liquid some time ago and was experimenting with his hired muscle. Zardac apparently was having his own troubles as it seems this cult was getting in his way for a while now. She doesn't know how Zardac was finding the dragonballs locations. She decided to stay at the castle to avoid suspicion that she had betrayed her former master. The king provided the party with a ship to the sea, and two new adventurers also had tagged along, a vampire named Vlad and an elven pyromancer named James, whom unconventionally fought with his fists. It seems that James and Diachi had apparently gone on jobs together. Blythe also returned. Sigrun and Daichi were hesitant to go and dive in due to the fact that neither could swim in water nor breather underwater nor hold their breath long enough. The king's alchemist provided the party with what was called Gill Pills, special pills that allow people to breathe underwater and withstand pressure for 1 day or until they touch air, as well as ropes to act as life lines to the ship. Under the water they found tzeench cultist, crascs, and argonians hired by Zardac. Rodrik surprised everyone, he was punching the enemies at long distances while not even touching them at all, as well as throwing clacker balls that spun oddly and seemed to be enchanted with lightning, he was cutting people with leaves using them like shuriken, and he seemed to be able to stop attacks midair. No one in the party had seen this before. Zardac's men brought out some hydras and as they the party was going in deeper Daichi got scared of drowning, turned into a dragon, swam and then flew away. Vlad during combat tried turning into bloodmist but due to him doing this underwater he dissolved and was never seen again for the rest of the arc. The cultist getting desperate pulled out two giant suits of armor, they summoned them by doing some sort of suicide ritual. The suits of armor seemed to move and talk on their own, the only thing inside them was a blood seal of an ouroboros. These suits were equipped with giant metal kwan-daos and canons on one arm that shot dark beams of magic. They talked oddly, kinda like robots. Rodrik unfortunately gets killed by being stabbed with a kwan-dao leaving a gaping chest wound. Blythe's portal backfires for the last time and is also never seen again in this arc. James and Sigrun managed to defeat one of the suits of armor, which calls itself a GKT, a grey knight terminator. Rodrik comes face to face with the grim reaper whom tells him he can go back if he beats him at a game of cards. While Rodrik is literally gambling for his life James and Sigrun continue fighting the other GKT that killed Rodrik. Rodrik eventually manages to come back to life, with a scar in his abdomen and a calling card from death and helps finish off the last GKT. The party finds the chest which was holding the 3 star dragonball and tugs on their line pulling them back up to the ship. When the 3 get back they see that the crew and alchemist had been killed, the ship lit on fire and Zardac's men boarding the ship. Things seemed grim until to their surprise a small sail boat comes to their rescue, Albatrar had shown up, apparently their to loot the ship but played it off as a rescue attempt. The 4 managed to escape back to Britannia once again surprising the king with the party's numbers but hope slowly being resotred to him and the citizens as they had recovered 3 dragonballs and were now up to 4. Side Quest 4 The 4th one was a prize in an arena. Rodrik who had not fully recovered decided to have another guildmate take his place this time, a former templar by the name of Dante. Daichi rejoined to atone for his shame and Albatrar had decided to retry his hand at the quest to reap its rewards, James however left the party, apparently he had something urgent to do. The arena was an old gladiatorial one, not many people understood what the prize was and thought it was some kinda fake prize. The competiton only had 8 competitors in a bracket. It was Daichi vs Sigrun in the 1st round, A giant gladiator named J Master vs An orc chief in the 2nd round, a centaur vs another orc in the 3rd round and Albatrar vs Dante in the 4th round. It turned out when it came to blows Daichi had the advantage over Sigrun, J master easily won the next round, the centuar the next and Albatrar got the better hand over Dante in their fight. The next fights were J master vs the Centuar and Daichi vs Albatrar, J master easily won his fight, however Daichi and Albatrar were evenly matched, they even went into the tunnels below the arena and fought under where the traps, monsters, and slaves were. Eventually J master attacks the stands and decides to just steal the dragon ball by himself killing the people holding the competition and causing most of the audience to flee in terror, Sigrun and Dante manage to stop him and Daichi and Albatrar stop their fighting to help stop J master. J master then calls for reinforcements as several mercenaries come down from the stands. It seems as though he was working for Zardac the whole time. The giant was strong but fortunately for the party James was in the audience and he joined in on the fight. The thing James had to take care was actually him wanting to watch the fights that day. Several other cultist, this time followers of Slaneesh appear, to try and take the dragon ball as well. Eventually the party makes a giant sized hole in the ground and knock J master down below to the lower floors of the arena. This lowers the morale of the mercs but as they try to leave everyone hears a raspy voice in the sky. To describe it I imagine its sounds like a youtuber named Grimmjack69 voicing the devil in his The devil is in a ment series. It was Zardac and he was not gonna tolerate anymore failure, some of his mercs start spewing out inky black liquid from their mouths, eyes, noses, and ears. Everyone is horrified as Zardac warns them that if they fail or retreat he will kill them, forcing them to fight the party to the death. The mysterious cult seems to vanish in the middle of the fight but are not able to steal the dragonball. The party wins and recovers the 5 star dragonball. Side Quest 5 The 5th one was found by some other adventurers whom had been captured and taken to a castle's dungeon of a town Zardac had recently taken over. Apparently the king had sent another guild to take care of this mquest while our main party was collecting their own. By now a week has passed since the 1st quest and now. Sheik reveals that she heard rumor that Zardac was have merc secretly go into surgery to have some sort of black crystal implanted into him men, but as far as she knew the crystals were merely a form for communication, she had no idea they could be used to kill his own minions. Sigrun, feeling inadequate to Daichi decides to sit this one out and decides to go train. Dante says that since this is a covert mission he knows someone from his guild that is better at sneaking around and decides to hand the quest of to him, an assassin by the name of Maffeo Polo. When the party gets to the town they find out that the guards aren't exactly loyal Zardac but they have to be careful to not disobey or risk being killed, but it is too late as the guard that lets them in is killed with the mysterious black liquid and mercenaries start storming the strees causing our party to split. Albatrar runs into a shop, Daichi a blacksmith, James a tavern, and Maffeo an alleyway. Albatrar and Daichi after making some purchases run into each other and a fortune teller. She tells Albatrar that he will have to confront a great evil soon and make a decision but he blows this off as cold reading. To Daichi however her smile turns grim and she asks him to leave. Maffeo encounters a young lady looking for her little brother, Maffeo offers to help and will tell the boy to return home when he finds him, he tries to get a kiss but instead gets a slap. James starts a brawl and destroys the tavern walls and several other walls. He gets the attention of the mercs and causes chase into the woods, the mercs don't follow after that. The woods is filled with strange creatures, One of the 1st things the party encounters is a forest spirit that looks like the dog from duckhunt(I did this before Pixels came out!). He warns them that while the forest isn't kind to people they might be inclined to help due to the fact that Zardac's experiments have infected many of the forest inhabitants. After that they encounter the boss of the forest, a strange large pink ball holding a black book that constantly says "Jiggly" in a deep voice. It decides to let them go after hearing that they were there to go after Zardac. Afterwards they find a small outpost that is used by the hunters from the town. Maffeo finds the small boy and sends him home. At the outpost is a shaman, he helps awaken a new power in each party member. Afterwards the party crosses a bridge over a fissure and that's when they begin encountering monsters infected with the black liquids. The party manages to press through. After the woods the party finds a castle surrounded by a moat. Inside they find many traps and this time orcs, ogres, goblins, trolls, and even cyclopes infected with the mysterious black liquid. Eventually they find some of the guild that was sent there prior to them. The guild reveals itself to be called Night Raid through song. (Look up the song "Night Raid, F**k Yeah (parody Song) by Eagle8Burger on Grimmjack69's channel on youtube.) Night Raid then goes onto say that they found the dragon ball but their other party members have it and they are in the dungeon below the castle. They use a trapdoor that night raid said they saw their members get taken down to. Down below they find more of the same monsters & traps as above as well as Dragonkin, wyverns, lizardmen, and hydras, luckily for the party Daichi is fluent in Draconic and is able to talk down most of the enemies. Eventually they manage to reach the other Night Raid members, one of which was tortured by feeding him the food he was allergic through, as well as other strange means, (I like to imagine him being voiced by Gilbert Gottfried). With that the party finally gets the 2 star dragon ball, they escape through a secret tunnl in the dungeon and return to King Heathcliffe. Main Quest Line part 2 When the party gets back they find that Sheik has died the same way as the rest of Zardac's men, the guards take her body away to the morgue. Maffeo Polo was the only one who wasn't able to pull his own weight. He gets called back to the Dovah Viing Guild Hall, it seems that the guild master has decided to send in one of his strongest members instead for the upcoming fight with Zardac. This is when I introduced the concept of S-Rank members. In his place is a man with English and Middle Eastern features on his face, he is dressed as a samurai however. He is introduced as Wilder Dragoon, who seems to be an odd, possibly crazy fellow. Daichi decides to go home for now and rest but says he will join them later on. That night the king decides to give the party what food reserves they have to help them prepare for the upcoming battle, though James and Albatrar feel guilty about eating the kingdom's food when the country is starving. That night the castle falls under attack! Large amounts of orcs, cyclops, trolls, dragonhide, goblins, and even ogres and wyverns appear and start smashing the castle walls. It up to the King, his council, the guards, James, Albatrar, and Wilder to fend off the invading forces. Wilder shows a strange type of skill familiar to James, that he hasn't quite mastered yet. Wilder uses sharp burning shock waves made of air as he swings his katana around.He ends up destroying more of the castle than the invading hordes but is able to fend them off. The party pushes the blame unto Zardac when the king and his forces arrive and meet the party. The King reveals that he has been using his own power to force an invisible barrier around the country that only allows guests and citizens in and out. The party decides to check Sheik's corpse that is overflowing with the black liquid now, the king's mages immediately put a barrier around her body and this seems to restore the natural barrier. It's hypothesized that when the party invited Sheik, they also invited Zardac's power into the barrier, which was used by Zardac's men to get in. The king decides that the party should leave at once to Zardac's dungeon and send them on their way. The party along the road encounters a large ogre guard, one twice, possibly thrice as big as a regular ogre. Wilder decides to run past it to see if the next town is safe from Zardac and also to clear the way, he leaves the ogre to Albatrar and James. After the 2 defeat the ogre they arive in the next town, it is on fire, pools of black liquid are on the streets every where, buildings are destroyed, their are corpse of both citizens and Zardac's men alike. The two find a note from Wilder, it read "Hey guys so Zardac's men killed everyone so I just went ahead and destroy the town, might be a few stragglers around, I will be waiting at the entrance to the dungeon :)". There were a few survivors left from Zardac's forces that regained consciousness as they finished the note. The 2 finish off the remnants. They meet Wilder at the entrance and make their way in, as they get in the dungeon seems to be empty. This dungeon entrance seems to be an above ground crypt, nothing unusual about it, Inside are corpse in the walls and big suits of armor. The suits of armor start moving and oozing black liquid, black liquid is also oozing from where the corpse are, overflowing to the point where they get pushed out of their spots. The party fends off the strange armor and corpses that smile at the party menacingly. Wilder out of the blue takes an empty vial and carefully gets a sample of the black liquid. Albatrar decides he has had enough of this shit and decides to run away, Wilder slips him the vial into his clothing, he doesn't explain himself to James. As Wilder and James progress through the crypt they encounter some traps and start breaking the crypt, upon breaking the floor, the find that the crypt is on top of a volcanic hotspot, in other words, there was lava under the floor. As more armor and corpse attack a large 3 headed hell hound appears and attacks the two. The beast has the advantage when it comes to overwhelming force, things look bad when just then part of the crypt wall explodes, James sees a familiar small green saurian enter through the whole. It was Sigrun, he had returned from his training! With Sigrun rejoining the party the 3 are able to overwhelm the Entrance Guardian killing it, it's body sinks into the lava. The entrances seems to be collapsing a lava flooding in with no way out for our heroes(if you can call James and Wilder that), they stumble across a door, they quickly open it and run inside. In the new room they find that it is very cold and hard to breathe. They look up and see nothing but a white cloudy sky and snowfall. They go to check some unusual gaps in the floor and wall and are shocked to see that the room is floating high above a snowy mountain. James, Wilder, & Sigrun look around the area, the place looks old and crumbling slowly, they find strange items around the room, just as they finish investigating parts of the floor began to fall. They have to jump gaps and hugs to progress while being attacked by bats. Sigrun almost dies, James falls to his doom. Wilder and Sigrun manage to reach the door as James reappears before them, seems death is on their side. They figure out that the door needs a password in Latin and the 3 items were part of the puzzle. They all say the phrase to get and open the door before the dungeon collapses. They arrive at a strange valley. They arrive in a cave The next room is a similar type of dungeon to the one above the mountain but instead they are surrounded by blackness and stars. The Last room is floating in space, the party finally comes face to face with Zardac.